22 March, 2014

The Baker Street Translation (Weekend Reads)

There are a lot of people with stipulations about beach reads. While I'm not generally looking for something heady or overly challenging, I'm not about to pick up a romance novel. it just isn't me. My last beach read was perfect. Same bookstore, different aisle. Very different results.

The Baker Street Translation is the third in a series of modern-day Sherlock mysteries. The books revolve around the mysteries that seem to appear in front of the characters working at 221B Baker Street. Lawyers, of course, with a penchant for getting involved. Seeing as I am a big fan of the original Sherlock Holmes mysteries and the BBC series I had high hopes for some fun reading. And the book was just, okay.

The pace was a little too fast for me. It felt like it was racing to get to the point as opposed to letting the story unfold a little. I'm sure I would have appreciated the characters more had I read the previous two novels in the series as well. There were appropriate twists and turns and a couple of creepy characters to keep it engaging.

Was it fun? Yes. Was it entertaining? Sort of. Did it suit the beach read genre? Of course, it was a no brainer. I'm not a huge mystery reader so I can't say where it compares with others. And I didn't like it enough to want to read the other two in the series. But since I was reading it while I was sunning my toes on a Caribbean beach I really can't complain.

2 comments:

You might enjoy the Laurie King Sherlock and Mary Holmes mysteries more than this one. I just finished the same book last week and was nonplussed. I read lots and lots of mysteries - and this one doesn't win any prizes. If you want a real action packed series, with another husband/wife team, Margaret Duffy's are a lot of fun, too.